


Just Stay Close Enough

by theLiterator



Category: DCU
Genre: Crossdressing, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Ransom, hostages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2346794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Among the four Robins, their undercover skills were not to be questioned.  No one can fault their disguises, but sometimes, a back up plan is a good idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Stay Close Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scathach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scathach/gifts).



“What the hell is that?” Drake demanded. Damian looked up at him, shaking back his bangs and taking in his couture; he had little room to talk.

“It is a dress,” Damian announced, smoothing down the sides of it and tugging the asymmetrical hem so that it was exactly _so_ , and carefully fluffing out the bunched up fabric that formed a somewhat ‘trendy’ bow.

“It’s _leopard print_.” Tim stated flatly. His own gown was formal length and midnight blue, drawing attention to his eyes and his subtly enhanced… curves.

Damian scowled at him. “It is _designer_ ,” he said. “The best fashion Wayne money-- my _father’s_ money-- can buy.”

“They make designer dresses for little girls?” Drake demanded, giving Damian a somewhat shocked once-over. Damian had selected the sandals himself. They were purported to be ‘gladiator style’. He rather thought the elaborate lacings might be useful in certain situations that might arise.

“And you’re the one my grandfather thought might become a worthy successor,” Damian snapped with no small amount of disgust. “Of _course_ they make designer dresses for little girls. There is no shortage of little girls in the world whose parents would buy them such things, and is that not the _point_?”

Drake smirked a little, laughed a little. Damian knew that if he had been Grayson, Drake would have slapped his shoulder, or perhaps tackled him. Since he was _not_ Grayson, Drake held his physical assaults to a minimum; not that Damian particularly cared about such things.

Todd tripped down the stairs at that moment, dressed equally well; Grayson would be at the event as a waiter. He was far too recognizable as himself, and far too old to go as a female. It was well enough, after all. Damian did not wish to learn precisely how awful Grayson was at undercover work.

Todd drew up short and stared at him. “Jesus fucking Christ I need a cigarette,” he growled, even going so far as to withdraw a pack from his pocket and light one.

“It’s _designer_ ,” Drake said with a teasing lilt to his tone. 

Todd shook his head furiously. “For a kid in a room with two people who’ve actively tried to kill you, you’ve sure got a lot of balls,” he said. “But no; cute as littlest bro here is in his girl-clothes, it’s not that, it’s…”

Todd leaned forward and traced Damian’s cheekbone, and Damian hardly dared breathe. None of them touched him; only Grayson. None--

“He’s just… very definitely Talia’s kid, right now,” Todd said under his breath. Damian wanted to jerk away, or use the hand against his cheek as leverage to take Todd down, but he didn’t. He held still.

Todd smiled at him a very very little, and it was full of nostalgia and something else. Empathy or pity or both.

“Not something you hear a lot, huh?” he asked. “It’s okay, I’ve got my own share of mom-issues.” The touch turned to a pat, and then Todd went back to tying up his bow tie. “Talia-issues too,” he added, his back to Damian.

Which was fair, because he had Todd-issues, and every one of them related back to his mother.

He cast a glance in the mirror, leaning slightly so he could see himself around Todd’s body, and it was not at all like looking at a stranger. Todd had, irritatingly, been correct. He looked like _her_.

Grayson appeared at that moment, and hauled Damian up against his chest in a tight, un-complicated hug. “God, look at you, little D!” he exclaimed, practically cooing. Damian tried to protest with his usual form, but it was lost under the weight of Todd’s gaze. “I can see you’re taking Tim’s little threat there to heart. What’d that run us; eighteen-hundred? Two thousand? Jay, put that out. Smoking’s not in your cover.”

“Fuck off and die, Grayson,” Todd said mildly. Grayson finally set Damian down, and Damian scrambled away, the sandals slipping against the floor.

“My father isn’t coming,” Damian announced. 

Grayson laughed. “Come on, Damian; he’d look awful in a dress.”

Todd stubbed out his cigarette in one of the candy dishes that always seemed to be conveniently present whenever Todd was around. “No way, kiddo,” he said. He went to tousle Damian’s hair, then drew back so his hand was cupped warm around Damian’s shoulder instead, because of the wig, Damian was sure.

Grayson was looking between them, eyes narrowed with thought, and then he crouched down so he was level with Damian and he looked him in the eye and said, “Your dad isn’t gonna care if you can pull off spoiled little rich girl particularly well, you know that, right?”

Damian scoffed. He should be relieved that Grayson hadn’t guessed his true concern, but mostly, he was furious. Grayson always pretended to be his closest, staunchest ally, but he couldn’t even _see_ \--

But then, Todd knew his mother the most intimately of all of them.

“Lay off the kid, Dick,” Todd snapped, his hand squeezing tighter. He should _not_ be enjoying the physical contact. It was a weakness, to open oneself up like that.

“Okay, so, what exactly did I miss?”

Drake, the weak-willed imbecile, replied. “Dami here looks like Talia.”

Grayson stared at him for a moment. “Damn,” he said. “No, B is _not_ coming.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Damian asserted, and the three others exchanged unreadable looks. Damian pretended he didn’t care.

“It does, little D. It really, really does.”

***

Tim woke up, bound and gagged with duct tape, and didn’t move. The whole evening had gone fairly well, with Damian proving yet again that he was thoroughly trained for subterfuge, and Jason being an all-around jerk, and then…

Nothing.

The last thing he remembered was talking to a businessman he, as Tim, had a very slight acquaintanceship with, and then Jason coming up to scowl at the man and scoop Damian up like he really _was_ a ten-year-old girl , and then, he woke up here.

He opened his eyes to slits, wondering if he’d see Damian and Jason, or if they’d been separated. There were at least four other people in the room, all equally unconscious, but the light was low enough that Tim couldn’t positively id any of them, though he was fairly certain the figure nearest him was wearing a leopard-print party dress.

Light suddenly flooded the room, and someone whimpered, and then there were three men in boots with guns kicking them awake.

Tim feigned grogginess and tried to scream through his gag only to be interrupted by a cuff to the side of his head. One of the gunmen dragged Damian up by his arm, and Damian’s eyes were unfocused. Couldn’t really feign that; so much for being more resistant to most toxic substances, Tim thought.

Since Damian had been playing his sister, Tim felt perfectly comfortable struggling to his feet and making a fuss over his rough treatment. Damian didn’t struggle himself, just blinked sluggishly at Tim.

“Play nice, ladies,” the gunman who had Damian said. “Or I won’t wait for the auction to take care of this one.”

Well, Tim thought. That was fucking creepy. He reacted the way he knew he had to, screaming and struggling and then Damian’s eyes focused on him, and he looked _surprised_.

One of the men ripped the duct tape off of Tim’s face and he let a few tears dribble down. “Please,” he said, “Please don’t hurt my sister!”

Damian was flung against his chest. “You keep her quiet, you be a _good girl_ , and it won’t come down to that. You got it?” Tim nodded vigorously, keeping his head down.

“Now, we’re going to give your parents first chance at bidding on you, but we expect to make a lot of money from girls like you.”

“You’re going to let us call our parents?” Tim asked, incredulously. Damian’s breathing was shallow and uneven against his neck.

“Not that one,” the guy said. “She’s a biter. Had to give her a triple dose to get her down, too. What’s your sister made of, bitch?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tim replied. “Triple dose of what?” he demanded, not having to fake the sudden panic he felt.

“Phenobarbital,” the gunman said, surprisingly helpfully. “I’m surprised she’s still breathing.” He patted Damian’s head, his fingers brushing Tim’s cheek when he did so. Tim was a bit surprised himself, but he didn’t let it show, didn’t let the sudden spike in his heartbeat do anything but make him more alert.

“Can I… can I call our dad now?” he asked meekly. “Please?”

“You want to go first?” The gunman asked, his hand still on Damian’s head.

“I want my dad,” Tim said, voice quavering. It was exceedingly likely that B had already pinpointed their location, considering Tim had no way of knowing how long they were unconscious, but it would be a good idea to give him as much detail as he could.

The other girls were slowly blinking off the drug-induced grogginess, and the gunman who kept touching Damian helped Tim sit back down, and with lingering caresses to Damian’s back, helped situate him in Tim’s lap. “There,” he said in a low murmur. “You look after your sister, now.”

Bile rose in Tim's throat, and he struggled to keep his reaction from overwhelming him. Considering how young Damian was, the sort of guy who _liked_ that wouldn’t care that Damian was a boy. A hundred studies of criminal psychology floated uselessly to the front of his mind, and he had to fight to keep his calm.

Tim rattled off a phone number that he knew B would be monitoring directly, and stared at the phone while the line rang through loudly in the mostly-silent room. Damian was regaining lucidity, he could tell, because the boy was shifting slightly, and his fingers had started to curl up towards the duct tape on his wrists.

“Who is this?” Batman demanded on a growl, and Damian froze, breath momentarily still.

“Daddy?” Tim said plaintively. “Daddy it’s _me_. They’ve got me and they’ve got little D and they said they were gonna sell us, you have to come get us, please,” he said, trying to decide how much detail he could include.

“Who are they?” Batman asked. “And can I speak to your” barest hesitation over the word, “Sister?”

“She’s… they--” Tim got slapped for his efforts.

“Your littlest darling isn’t very polite, so she won’t be joining us for this little tête-à-tête,” the third gunman said in smarmy tones. “Just the three of us, for now. So, let me deliver my demands: I want forty million by sunrise for each of the girls’ lives, and maybe I’ll think about letting you see them again if I get another forty each by tomorrow at midnight.”

Tim flinched. Even Bruce Wayne did not have that kind of liquid cash laying around, and their cover wasn’t even close to as well-off as him.

“Honey,” B said, the false endearment loaded with meaning, and Tim wanted to resent the drugged up child in his lap, he truly did. But. Damian was _ten_. Tim nodded even though he wasn’t visible.

“If you think you get to choose, by the way,” the gunman whose eyes were still fastened to Damian’s mostly-still form said. “You’d be wrong.”

The phone clicked off.

Tim hunched forward and wondered why the hell this was his life right now.

“How’s it feel to be second choice, darling,” he heard, and he shook his head roughly. In the Wayne family, he would always be second choice. Third. Last. Because he was a Drake first, and the rest of them were all Wayne, whether they claimed it or not.

He needed Damian to wake up, and soon.

***

Jason lit up another cigarette and sucked on it furiously. He'd bummed a second pack off of one of the dads they had corralled, and he hoped to fuck that Dick had managed to get away clean.

"So you're saying if we give you your money, you won't hurt our little girls?" One man was trying to cover up his complete, pants-wetting terror with alpha-male posturing.

"No, what I'm saying is that once you give us your money, we'll _stop_ hurting your little girls," the masked thug who'd taken charge said. 

Video came up on that ominous note, and Jason noted Tim, sitting somewhat more calmly than the rest of the girls, and Damian, slumped unconscious across his lap. Their disguises appeared to be firmly in place.

One of the girls was hauled up by her bound arm, and thrust to the forefront of the scene. "This is your daughter, is it not?"

"Wait," Jason said. "What about me and my sisters? I don't have _access_... I can't give you what you want, I need to call--"

"Daddy dearest has already been called. He knows the stakes."

Jason watched as the girl was systematically beaten; watched as her father broke, finally, and slumped to his knees, begging them to stop.

Paternal love. What a fucking crock of bull.

Jason offered him one of his cigarettes back, but he just said "Not in front of my baby," and started sobbing again.

Jason sighed. He kept close watch on the video, trying to determine where the kids had been taken, trying to determine whether Damian was faking it or not.

Damian had better be faking, Jason thought furiously.

He wasn't exactly known for his patience, so he felt perfectly justified in interrupting the start of the next bit of torture-porn with "What the hell did you do to Daniella?" He'd argued that the 'a' was a stupid addition to an otherwise perfectly sensible name, but he'd gotten identical stares and an 'exactly' for his troubles.

"She's fine," the man on the screen said. "Just resting. She'll be up and at 'em in no time at all." His smile was the sort of smile Jason had literal nightmares about.

"You keep your filthy hands to yourself," he heard himself snarling, "Or so help me I will--"

"JACOB!" Tim shouted, and it didn't quite cut through his rage. "Jacob, we're _fine_. I called dad, he knows the stakes. He'll get us out."

Jason's fingers twitched for his guns, or maybe just for the man's throat.

"I like this reaction. You know what, darling? I think it's your turn." The man on the video smiled, and Jason forgot about strategy and he forgot about the fact that he hated Timothy Drake (or maybe he didn't. _He_ was allowed to torture his replacement. No one else had that right). He launched himself at the nearest man to him, and he had a gun pointed between his eyes in a breath.

"Tell them to let her go," Jason growled.

The man laughed.

The room was in chaos.

"Let. My siblings. Go." Jason repeated, flicking off the safety.

He sensed the rest of the men forming up around him; he wondered how many of them were panicked fathers and how many were this man's allies.

And then Nightwing burst in and plastered himself to Jason's back.

"Let go of the gun, Red," he murmured into Jason's ear. "It's going to be okay. Just let him go."

Jason looked up and saw that Nightwing had Black Bat and Batgirl as backup, and he let Dick pry the gun from his hands, and he let Dick hug him tightly from behind while the girls took care of the thugs.

He was vaguely aware that there was screaming and sobbing from the video feed, but he couldn't bring himself to look up, to see who was being threatened and tortured for Nightwing and Black Bat and Batgirl's amusement.

The video feed shut off.

Jason shuddered bodily, then threw Nightwing off and went to lean against the nearest wall and light up another cigarette, the picture of nonchalance.

"'Bout time you idiots got here," he snarled around his cigarette.

Nightwing grinned reassuringly at him, and Black Bat and Batgirl ignored him. "So, you got a trace on the kids?" he asked.

"Yeah," Nightwing said. "B got a call, he's on his way."

Jason straightened up and hissed, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette. "That isn't gonna end well," he said. "Any way for us to join the party?"

One of the men nodded vigorously in agreement, and another started to speak.

"Not you assholes. Not surprised you don't recognize me though."

Dick, ever the showman, chose to toss Jason a domino in that moment, and Jason pressed it hard to his face, opening his eyes to a state of the art HUD and that steady feeling that only anonymity and excellent tech for fighting crime brought him.

"I'm the motherfucking Red Hood."

It was weird; none of them seemed to flinch away from that name, or from Jason's fierce grin.

"Then our kids are in good hands?" one of the sharply dressed businessmen said, and he was oh-so-tired looking.

"The best," Batgirl said softly.

Right.

The best.

***

Drake being tortured was what finally forced his system to start filtering through the drugs they'd dosed him with, and Damian felt his senses returning to him even as Drake started screaming and sobbing and begging.

An act, he assumed, to keep up their disguises.

He opened his eyes in time to watch Nightwing stop Todd from killing, and then the screen to go dark.

His face was stiff from the duct tape, and the other occupants of the room had been similarly gagged, save Drake and one other. His fingers _just_ brushed the edges of the tape around his wrists, and he could feel the edges were frayed, so either he'd already gotten started freeing himself, or Drake had.

One of the men holding them noticed that he was conscious.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said softly, crouching to stroke Damian's wig. "You're awake already?"

Damian blinked at him.

"If I take off that nasty tape, do you promise not to bite me, sweetheart?" Damian let his eyes fill up with tears, then nodded.

The man wiped one of the tears away. "This'll probably hurt, but you're a brave little girl, aren't you?" He didn't wait for a reply before ripping the tape off all at once.

Damian had a split second to decide how he was going to play this: they had drugs that affected him quite strongly, and he was still bound, so he let his head roll around as if he were still under the influence of their drugs.

"That's a very good girl," he was told, and then the man was setting him upright, propped up against a support strut of some manner, so he had a perfect view of the man systematically beating Drake with his belt.

Well, that particular situation seemed unpromising. It was a good thing the thug had positioned him such that he could use the corner of the strut to work at his bonds, because he was hardly going to have any help from Drake at this rate.

"You think your daddy has 160 million laying around, ready to pay for you?" the man asked, and Damian's insides twisted at the odd note of hope in his voice.

He ducked his head, forced himself to cry some more and tried not to think of the dehydration that would result if he had to keep this up for very long without sustenance, especially after the drugs. "I don't know, sir," he whispered. "Is that... is that a lot?"

He knew full well that _his_ father wouldn't bother paying a ransom, but little Daniella was a mere child and would have no idea about money like that.

"It's more than a lot," the man said, and his touches were unnerving and Damian wanted nothing more than to slit his throat.

"My daddy has a lot of money," he offered, and he felt one of the reinforced threads give in the duct tape.

They were done torturing Drake, apparently, because he was being dragged across the room, then dropped next to Damian. There was a welt already rising on his cheek, and his breathing was harsh and ragged, still, Damian asked coldly, "Status?"

"Alive," Drake answered unhelpfully. "Pissed off," he added after a moment.

A second thread gave, and suddenly Damian had a lot more room to maneuver his wrists. He twisted one hand free and then shifted himself and Drake in quick, smooth movements so he could free him as well.

"Did I really see Nightwing on that video?" he asked.

"Affirmative."

"How long were we out?"

Drake shrugged, and Damian could feel the motion against his back. It was more reassuring than anything Drake had said or done yet, and he could not have articulated why. "J was still in formalwear, but he was with the rest of these girls' dads, so that probably means nothing. I got B on the phone, though. Backup is on its way."

Damian had Drake free, then, and he drew his hands forward, rolling his shoulders to loosen them.

"Backup is for other people," he said. "We're _Robin_."

Drake snorted, but he started loosening his own muscles in preparation for the fight.

"Do we have a plan?" Drake asked.

Damian grinned, even though Drake couldn't see it.

"Well, I have three knives. You may borrow one."

Drake groaned. "Or how about neither of us gut these people."

"You do know what they had planned for us?" Damian asked, slipping off his sandals and then using one of his concealed knives to separate the laces from the sole. He passed the first makeshift garrote to Drake, then started in on the next one.

"How about you go high, and I go low?" Drake asked.

"Fine," Damian snarled. "Do not allow them to use the others as shields."

Drake didn't bother with a scathing reply, which left Damian feeling vaguely disconcerted, even as he darted away, looking for a good way to get above the group.

He had just found a vantage point and was waiting for an opportunity to drop down on their heads when he heard gunfire from another part of the building, and shouting.

Backup had arrived. He smiled grimly and dropped down into the thugs' card game.

"Hi," he said shyly, and when the one who was entirely too fond of him went in for the grab, he drove his knee inelegantly up between the man's legs.

He knew by instinct when Batman came up behind him, and he ducked around his father, letting the man's cape conceal his next motions since he lacked his own, and promptly stumbled and fell, his head going blurry again.

There was no way to tell who had gotten him with the syringe, but they _had,_ and that was just...

Humiliating...

"Father?" he whispered.

***

It was surreal to watch Damian drop from the ceiling to distract the men guarding the host, not because he was unaccustomed to Damian doing such things, but because of something... else.

It was a combination, he thought, of the quality of the light and of the length of the wig and the color of the dress, but he looked so much like his mother that it took Batman an extra half-second to react. That half-second cost Damian, he realized as he watched a syringe empty its contents in his son's neck. Watched as Damian brushed the syringe away like it was an insect.

For the first few moments, when Damian pulled the very Robin-like maneuver of dodging into the shadows left by his cape, he thought his son would shake off whatever he'd been injected with the way he seemed to most drugs and toxins, but he didn't reappear, and Batman had to focus on disabling his opponents, so he only caught a glimpse of his son in a disturbingly tiny heap near where he'd last seen him.

Finally, finally, he had cleared the area and given the others their tasks, and he could go over to Damian and check him over.

Tim joined him before he'd done more than roll the boy, looking obscenely young in his unconsciousness, to his side and situate him in the recovery position.

"Phenobarbital," Tim said. "Enough to put down a horse, I'd bet." Bruce grunted acknowledgement, then carefully took the wig off of his youngest. He still looked far too young, and far too little like _Damian_ for his tastes, but that could not be helped.

"Do we have eyes on the Red Hood?" he asked, remembering, belatedly, that Jason would need to be watched as closely here as possible. 

"Here, _dad_ ," Jason snapped from somewhere just above him.

"Good," Bruce said. He checked Damian for injury, but it seemed that what Tim had said was true; he was merely drugged into unconsciousness, so he carefully took his youngest into his arms.

"Batgirl, Black Bat, you take care of the rest," he ordered. Batgirl said something, most likely scathing and uncomplimentary, and he ignored her in favor of making certain that Tim was close enough that he wouldn't be left behind, and he took his sons to the Batmobile.

It was Nightwing who finally broke the silence, once they'd driven well away from the warehouse.

"Well, that was not at all what we expected when we got that vague warning, now was it?"

Tim shifted slightly, and Bruce tracked his movement in the rear-view mirror.

"I'd say 'lucky we were there' but it really would have gone better if we weren't, wouldn't it?" Tim asked.

Bruce sighed and said, "It was a poor call."

He knew that if Jason had gotten into the car with him, he'd have dissension among the ranks. He couldn't help the relief he felt at _not_ having to handle Jason's brand of loyalty on top of the knowledge that he had failed tonight, and rather drastically.

"That one guy-- you need to see if he has any priors he can be be linked to," Tim blurted out.

"What do you suspect?" Bruce asked.

"Uh, child molestation, kids 9-11, probably. Uh, possibly girls, dark hair, light eyes..."

Bruce slammed on his brakes and had to breathe for a few moments.

"Damian." He wasn't even aware he'd voiced that thought aloud until Tim interrupted.

"He's fine, he's okay. The guy knew what side his bread was buttered on, he wasn't going to risk the ransom."

Bruce clenched his fists around the steering wheel until his joints were aching, and tried very hard not to think about Jason, or about Damian, or about _anything_.

"There was no way any of us could have known, B," Nightwing said softly. Bruce eased his foot off the brakes. The car started moving again.

Damian mumbled something from the back.

"We're in the Batmobile, D," Tim said reassuringly.

"That much is obvious, Drake," Damian replied acidly, and Bruce relaxed his grip on the wheel.

Then, more quietly, “You are injured. Have you informed them of this?”

“I think they know,” Tim said softly. Bruce looked in the rear-view mirror just in time to catch Damian lightly touching the injury to Tim’s cheek, and his chest was suddenly tight with a fierce pride that his son was finally reacting like…

Like he had emotions.

“Both of you will be examined when we return to the cave,” he said, more sharply than usual, but he was still trying to categorize his reaction to Damian’s uncharacteristic gentleness.

“And Jason,” Nightwing said.

“Todd,” Damian spat. “Where was he when we got drugged anyway? He had _one_ task--”

“There was movement on the far side of the building,” Nightwing said. “I had him go investigate because he was trying to start a fight with that guy, remember?”

“No,” Damian said.

“Yeah, I have no idea either,” Tim replied. “I sort of remember him freaking out and grabbing Damian, but I don’t remember why, or anything after that.

“I think… he picked me up? I was surprised though… I don’t recall more than that.”

“How long before the phone call did you regain consciousness?” Bruce asked.

“Minutes,” Tim said. “Dami was out for a lot longer, but the guy said he’d given him multiple doses.”

“So call it… six hours lost?” Nightwing surmised aloud.

Tim sighed heavily. “And I feel exhausted. Great.”

“Well, at least you look nice,” Nightwing said.

“Hah!” Tim retorted.

“Eloquent as ever, Drake,” Damian said, but the words were slightly slurred, and he had a distinct accent that rounded his vowels and made Bruce think, suddenly, of Talia. He shook his head to clear that thought, because he could not afford to ever think of Talia when he looked at Damian, but still…

But still. He absolutely must not.


End file.
